The challenges in the modern vehicle yards are vast and diverse. Classification yards, or hump yards, play an important role as consolidation nodes in vehicle freight networks. At classification yards, inbound vehicle systems (e.g., trains) are disassembled and the cargo-carrying vehicles (e.g., railcars) are sorted by next common destination (or block). The efficiency of the yards in part drives the efficiency of the entire transportation network.
The hump yard is generally divided into three main areas: the receiving yard, where inbound vehicle systems arrive and are prepared for sorting; the class yard, where cargo-carrying vehicles in the vehicle systems are sorted into blocks; and the departure yard, where blocks of vehicles are assembled into outbound vehicle systems, inspected, and then depart.
Current solutions for field service operations are labor-intensive, dangerous, and limited by the operational capabilities of humans being able to make critical decisions in the presence of incomplete or incorrect information. Furthermore, efficient system level-operations require integrated system wide solutions, more than just point solutions to key challenges. The nature of these missions dictates that the tasks and environments cannot always be fully anticipated or specified at the design time, yet an autonomous solution may need the essential capabilities and tools to carry out the mission even if it encounters situations that were not expected.
Solutions for typical vehicle yard problems, such as brake bleeding, brake line lacing, coupling cars, etc., can require combining mobility, perception, and manipulation toward a tightly integrated autonomous solution. When placing robots in an outdoor environment, technical challenges largely increase, but field robotic application benefits both technically and economically. One key challenge in yard operation is that of bleeding brakes on inbound cars in the receiving yard. Railcars have pneumatic breaking systems that work on the concept of a pressure differential. The size of the brake lever is significantly small compared to the size of the environment and the cargo-carrying vehicles. Additionally, there are many variations on the shape, location, appearance, and the material of the brake levers. Coupled with that is the inherent uncertainty in the environment; every day, vehicles are placed at different locations, and the spaces between cars are very narrow and unstructured. As a result, an autonomous solution for maintenance (e.g., brake maintenance) of the vehicles presents a variety of difficult challenges.